Hello all Constant Readers.
Currently reading the latest paperback English edition of Danse Macabre I came upon a mistake Stephen King has made originally and which has not yet been corrected (obviously).
Indeed, on top of page 55 in this Hodder 2012 edition, he wrote « The French for left, bastardized from the Latin, is la sinistre, from which comes our word sinister. » Now the actual French word for "(the) left" is "(la) gauche", and it has been so for about five centuries, since actually there was a such a word as "la sinistre" in French for "la gauche" but it was discarded sometime during the XVth century.
These days "sinistre" only is an adjective mealing the same as the English "sinister". In the masculine it is a noun meaning "damage, loss".
Then again the Italian for "the left" is "sinistra".
Wondering how Stephen King could take this observation into account without having to erase the whole sentence, I thought he may be interested by the fact that "gauche" in French not only means "left" but also "clumsy", which could quite fit the intention.
Currently reading the latest paperback English edition of Danse Macabre I came upon a mistake Stephen King has made originally and which has not yet been corrected (obviously).
Indeed, on top of page 55 in this Hodder 2012 edition, he wrote « The French for left, bastardized from the Latin, is la sinistre, from which comes our word sinister. » Now the actual French word for "(the) left" is "(la) gauche", and it has been so for about five centuries, since actually there was a such a word as "la sinistre" in French for "la gauche" but it was discarded sometime during the XVth century.
These days "sinistre" only is an adjective mealing the same as the English "sinister". In the masculine it is a noun meaning "damage, loss".
Then again the Italian for "the left" is "sinistra".
Wondering how Stephen King could take this observation into account without having to erase the whole sentence, I thought he may be interested by the fact that "gauche" in French not only means "left" but also "clumsy", which could quite fit the intention.